The crystalline chimes of the Xylos Gala had barely begun to fade when Korin Bael, Emperor of the megacorp consortium, tapped the microphone. His smile, usually a polished veneer of corporate charm, stretched into a predatory sneer as he raised a shimmering data-slate. The assembled media drones, their lenses already hungry, surged forward, flashing. On the elevated plinth overlooking the shimmering synth-silk crowd, Korin’s gaze swept over the sea of faces, before landing on the petite woman draped across a plush crimson lounge, her head tilted at an improbable angle, sound asleep.
“My dear citizens of Xylos,” Korin’s voice boomed, perfectly modulated, “today marks a new chapter for Astraeus. For too long, my personal life has been burdened by… unnecessary weight.” He gestured dramatically towards the sleeping figure. “A trophy, perhaps, but one that has long outlived its ornamental purpose. Effective immediately, I am divorcing Rizka Voda.”
A collective gasp rippled through the gala. Rizka Voda, the notoriously reclusive wife, was being publicly discarded. The murmurs grew, a mix of pity and schadenfreude. Korin, basking in the attention, held up the data-slate. “This biometric separation agreement severs all ties, effective the moment her signature authenticates. Astraeus needs a partner, not a… a permanent fixture on the chaise lounge.”
A nearby waiter, startled, accidentally clattered a tray of champagne flutes. The noise was enough. Rizka’s left eye fluttered open. She blinked once, twice, the vibrant neon glow of the gala reflecting in her deep, calm irises. She pushed herself upright, a soft, almost inaudible sigh escaping her lips. Her gaze drifted lazily to Korin, then to the data-slate he was practically shoving into her face. The screen glowed with a dense legal contract, paragraphs of fine print scrolling endlessly.
“What’s this?” she mumbled, her voice surprisingly melodic, laced with the distinct rasp of someone whose nap had been rudely interrupted. Her fingers, delicate and unadorned, reached for the stylus Korin impatiently offered. Without a single glance at the content, without even a flicker of curiosity about the terms of her impending financial ruin, she pressed the stylus to the signature pad.
Her thumb brushed the biometric scanner. A faint, almost imperceptible *click* echoed only in the silence of the now-nervous crowd. A verdant light pulsed on the data-slate, confirming the signature. Rizka yawned, a wide, uninhibited stretch that showcased perfect, pearly teeth. She handed the slate back to Korin, who snatched it with a triumphant grin.
“Excellent,” he declared, his voice thick with a self-satisfied smugness. “The dead weight is officially jettisoned."
"Now, if you’ll excuse me," Rizka murmured, "I believe I saw a particularly comfortable looking sonic-cushion over by the hydroponic wall. A girl needs her beauty sleep, you know.” And with that, Rizka Voda, the newly single pariah, drifted through the stunned crowd, a singular purpose in her languid steps: to find a quieter place for a proper nap.
The moment her back was to the main stage, as Korin began a self-congratulatory speech about his firm's bright, unencumbered future, every single digital display in the vast gala hall simultaneously shuddered. The shimmering corporate logos, the elegant stock tickers, the dynamic art installations – all of them flickered, then died. A collective hush fell. Then, with a deafening, resonant thrum, every screen, from the towering holo-projections to the smallest wrist-comms, flared blood-red. A stark, white timer blared across the crimson backdrop:
**60:00:00:00**
**GLOBAL NEURAL-GRID COLLAPSE IMMINENT. LETHAL NEURO-VIRUS RELEASED.**
Panic ignited like dry kindling. Shouts erupted, champagne flutes shattered, and the elegant crowd devolved into a stampede. Korin, mid-sentence, froze, his triumphant grin twisting into a mask of pure horror. The digits pulsed, a harsh beacon in the center of the frantic chaos.
“Rizka!” a high-pitched, frantic voice shrieked from Rizka’s wrist-comm, barely audible over the din. “Rizka, pick up! It’s Jettio! The — the biometric divorce bond just severed the main grid’s neural dampeners! It’s all going to fry! Everyone connected to the net – their brains are going to be soup in sixty days! This is the apocalypse! Where are you? We have to fix this! Why are you still yawning?!”
Rizka, already halfway to the quieter eastern wing, simply sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know, Jettio,” she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep, then yawned again. “And stop yelling. You’ll wake the dead.”
Across the sprawling gala, hidden in the shadows of a towering data-sculpture, Zenkai Ozer, CEO of the rival Cygnus Dynamics, observed the pandemonium with a detached, clinical interest. The neural-grid collapse was a geopolitical nightmare, a corporate weapon of mass destruction. Yet, his gaze wasn’t on the terrified masses or the red countdown. It was fixed on the retreating figure of Rizka Voda. While titans of industry shrieked and sprinted for escape pods, she ambled, unhurried, a picture of profound, unbothered apathy amidst armageddon. There was something intensely fascinating about a woman who prioritized a nap over the end of the world.
Suddenly, Korin’s head of security, a hulking man named Commander Theron, burst onto the main stage, his face ashen. He snatched the microphone from Korin’s trembling hand. “Emergency broadcast! The countdown… it’s locked! Military-grade encryption! Our best techs can’t even begin to breach it! The only known entity with the capability to disable a protocol of this magnitude is… Zero. We need Zero.”